


The Other Side of Sunset Boulevard

by orphan_account



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Tumblr Prompt, poet AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-25
Updated: 2015-10-25
Packaged: 2018-04-28 03:51:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5076742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leo Fitz is a poet living in Los Angeles. His girlfriend ran off with his roommate, and she left with all of his words. While he tries to put himself back together, he starts to see the same woman everywhere. Silent, enigmatic, and beautiful, he wonders if she just might be a figment of his imagination. </p><p>Jemma Simmons is a little weird. And she isn't here to be his manic pixie dream girl. </p><p>He falls for her anyway. </p><p>A Poet!AU requested by amazingjemma.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Side of Sunset Boulevard

**Author's Note:**

> As always, this prompt got away from me. I planned on writing maybe 3k, and then suddenly it was 10k. I probably could have broken this up in to chapters, but I don't really have the time to start another multi chap right now...so here is an incredibly long one-shot.

When Trip sees Fitz sprawled out on the couch next to a nearly empty bottle of whiskey, surrounded by crumbled sheets of paper and his head in his hands, he’s not exactly surprised. 

“Fitz, man, you need to get your shit together,” he says firmly, beginning to pick up the discarded papers. “It’s been almost a month.” 

“I can’t write anymore,” the other man slurs. “Ever since she left.” 

Trip tries his hardest to not roll his eyes, but he can’t help himself. After an entire month of this behavior, his patience is beginning to wear thin. “Look, I’m bringing Skye here after dinner. She’s never been over, and I would appreciate if it didn’t look like an alcoholic bomb went off.” 

Fitz snorts derisively. “Has she heard from Raina?” 

“No,” Trip lies easily. “Nobody has heard from her or from Ward, I’ve told you that a thousand times. She’s been hanging out with this new girl from work anyway. I think you’d like her, actually.” 

“I’m not ready.” 

“Yeah, I get it,” Trip sighs. “You’ll never be ready. She was your muse and now she’s gone—“ 

“I haven’t written a single bloody word!” Fitz explodes, launching himself into a standing position and pacing back and forth. “You don’t understand.” 

“I really don’t. You don’t even write love poems anyway. All your shit is highbrow and complicated.” 

“I sometimes write about love.” 

“Very rarely,” Trip points out. “I’ve been supportive, Fitz. Everyone needs to go through a mourning period and all of that, but this is seriously getting out of hand. You need to get up. You need to move forward.” 

Fitz shrugs helplessly and Trip is struck by the wounded look in his roommate’s eyes. “I can’t.” 

“You don’t have a choice,” Trip tells him softly, putting his hands on the shorter man’s shoulders. “Maybe stop trying to write, for a while. It’ll come back. It’s who you are, but right now you can’t be you. So just—don’t try to be.” 

“What am I supposed to do with myself?” Fitz asks, beginning to clear up the rest of his mess. 

The door to the apartment swings open and a bubbly female voice breaks the pause in their conversation. “Hey babe! I got off early so I figured I would just come straight here.” 

Trip beams, meeting his girlfriend half way and kissing her softly. “Always good to see you. Fitz and I were just talking about what he can do with himself during the day.” 

Fitz feels his heart grow heavy as he watches their carefree exchange. 

“Well, if you don’t wanna keep torturing yourself,” Skye says with a pointed look at his rumpled appearance and the empty bottle of booze, “then you’ve gotta find a new hobby. Take yourself to a movie. Go to a museum. Read a book instead of trying to write one—maybe just steer clear of poetry right now. Go on a shopping spree, chop off your hair. That’s what people do when they get dumped, Fitz.” 

“I’ve just never been here before,” he admits. Skye looks at him sympathetically. 

“Look, I’d be a wreck if this guy kicked me to the curb. But eventually it stops being cute, Fitz. And I think you know that.” 

He nods, choking down the lump in his throat. “Alright. You’re right. Tomorrow I’ll go find something to do.” 

She beams at him and gives him a quick hug. “Good. You deserve to be happy, Fitz. She was a heinous bitch, and I always knew you deserved better.” 

“And you deserved better than Ward.” 

A darkness passes over her face before she tugs Trip toward her, grasping his hand. “And I got it.” 

Fitz can’t help but smile at the two of them. “Alright, I’m gonna see if Hunter wants to hang out or something. Let you two enjoy a date night for once, hm?” 

“You don’t need to—“ Trip starts, but Skye stomps on his foot. 

“Thanks, Fitzy!” 

And that’s how he finds himself sitting with Hunter in a filthy bar called Izzy’s. 

“Why are we here exactly?” 

“The bartender,” Hunter grins, nodding toward the tall blonde pouring a shot for an older man with an eye patch. “Her name is Bobbi. She hates me.” 

“And why do you seem so happy about that?” Fitz asks tentatively. He’s known Hunter long enough to feel very weary of the look on the other man’s face. “You’re not going to do something stupid, are you?” 

“Stupid? Me?” Hunter asks in a tone that properly (and accurately) conveys that he frequently does many stupid things. 

Fitz is momentarily distracted by a girl walking past their table on her way to the front door. Her wide brown eyes fall on him briefly, and she quirks her lips up in a friendly little smile. Her cheeks are flushed and her body moves loosely, probably from the alcohol. She wears a simple grey t-shirt, splattered with paints and her hair is thrown into a short, sloppy ponytail. Despite her disheveled appearance, she looks entirely too good for the entire bar. 

And then she’s gone. 

“Did you see her?” Fitz breathes, turning to watch the door shut behind her. 

“See who?” Hunter asks dumbly, still staring at the blonde bar tender. 

“Nevermind,” Fitz mumbles, taking a long swig from his drink. With the way he’d been drinking all day, he’d probably imagined her. Nobody else had even turned in her direction, and he’s pretty sure that any living, breathing human being would have no choice but to watch her. 

*** 

The next afternoon, he wakes up with a vague hangover and the image of round, dark honey eyes in his mind. Groaning, he forces himself into the shower, toweling off his curls and doing a quick google search for the closest museums. Trip has been patient with him, but even Trip has a breaking point. Fitz figures it’s only a matter of time before his longtime friend kicks his dysfunctional ass to the curb. 

The Getty Museum turns out to be free, so he decides to head over there. It’s close enough to his and Trip’s LA apartment, and he figures he’ll earn big points with Skye for actually taking one of her specific suggestions. It’s surprisingly chilly for a November day in California, so he throws on a long-sleeve under jacket and tugs a beanie onto his damp hair before heading out to his car. 

It takes him a while to find parking and then to get on the trolley that brings visitors to the top of the hill where the Getty is situated, but he’s sufficiently impressed when he steps out of the little train. The crisp sunshine makes the building look particularly nice in all of its white marble glory. He glances down at the map in his hand and decides to take a look at some exhibits before he checks out the infamous gardens and the view. The sun will be setting fairly early and the internet made the gardens look pretty nice at night. 

He takes a stroll around the first exhibit, marveling at some of the art and feeling rather disinterested in a good portion of it. Visual art has never really been his thing, probably because he can’t draw to save his life and the idea of abstract anything makes him a little angry. 

“A child could do this,” he grumbles to himself, tilting his head as he stares at the mess of colors on the canvas in front of him. “Honestly.” 

He wanders for a while longer, suddenly stopping as a particular work captures his attention. Fitz vaguely recognizes it from the art history class he took in college, some fancy French artist who has a gigantic painting at the Louvre. Something about it is so calming that he finds himself unable to move from the spot. 

When he eventually moves away to give other visitors the opportunity to look at the painting, he sees the girl from the bar, sitting silently on a bench. Without the flush to her cheeks and the glassy sheen on her eyes, she looks strangely melancholy, headphones tugged over her head. Her jeans are rolled up, just brushing against the tops of her red Doc Martens. Her hands are stained with paint and she gazes almost unseeingly at a picture in front of her. 

He feels his mouth go dry. He looks around at the other people in the gallery and sees that nobody else seems to notice her, once again. Taking a deep breath, he slowly exhales and cautiously makes his way toward the bench, sitting down as far away from her as she possibly can. He expects her to glance in his direction, but instead, she continues to stare blankly ahead. Fitz quickly shifts his gaze away from her profile, shaking himself. 

He’s going crazy. This entire month long mental breakdown has lead him to this point; hallucinating a beautiful woman everywhere he goes. 

She looks at him suddenly, looking vaguely startled. Something like recognition lights up in her eyes, and she gives him a shaking attempt at a smile. It ultimately fails, and somehow it’s even more tragic than the completely devastated look that had taken over her face as she stared at the damn abstract painting across the way. Fitz can hardly stand to look at it, and he averts his eyes toward his feet. Chewing hard on his lip, he finally decides to say something to her. Just a quick hello, he tells himself. He can do this. 

Mustering up all of his courage, he turns with the words on the tip of his tongue but finds himself unable to make a single sound. The girl is gone, no trace of her red boots or her headphones anywhere in the gallery. It’s practically a wide open space, and he can’t spot her anywhere.

That’s when Leo Fitz decides that he is simply losing his damn mind. 

He can’t shake the chill in his spine for the rest of the day. Not only does he feel crazy, he’s also a little bit creeped out. After watching Paranormal Activity with Skye the other day, he’s a little paranoid that this girl might be some vengeful spirit. Perhaps trying to murder an ex-lover? He’s pretty sure he would remember if he’d ever screwed over (or just plain old screwed) a woman that beautiful, but maybe he doesn’t. Maybe that’s why her ghost is going to drag him out of his bed by his feet. 

“Stop being crazy,” he mumbles to himself as he makes his way toward the grounds as the sun begins to set. A couple near him glances at him strangely and then shuffles off in the opposite direction. He curses under his breath and wishes he had taken a page out of the ghost girl’s book and brought his headphones. Skye is always telling him that he needs to appreciate life with a soundtrack, and as he gazes out over the sprawling view of Los Angeles, he feels like a soundtrack would be absolutely perfect for this calming moment. 

For a moment, he forgets all about Raina and his inability to write. He doesn’t think about how he’s scheduled for a tour starting in one month and has absolutely nothing to show the ten cities he’s traveling to. He forgets that his girlfriend ran off with Skye’s fling, he forgets that he’s still homesick for Glasgow even though he’s lived in LA for nearly seven years. He almost completely forgets that he may be losing his grip on reality and hallucinating some mysterious painter with beautiful eyes and a perfect pair of lips. 

He almost completely forgets, until she appears suddenly and nearly silently at his side, leaning her arms on the wall in front of them and peering out. She slips her headphones off of her hair and adjusts them over his beanie and onto his ears without saying a word. She doesn’t even spare him a glance as she turns up the volume on her little device. He can’t keep his eyes off of her as she bites her lip and stares down at the congested freeway and the shape of the skyline in the distance. 

Fitz knows this isn’t real. He’s a realist. That’s what all the reviewers say about his work, that he’s the rare kind of artist who is grounded very, very firmly in the way that things are. His writing is hardboiled, terse and brief but still full of imagery because he likes to capture the world exactly as it is, in any given moment. All the lyricism and idealism in the world has never appealed to him. The popularity of his work shows that maybe it’s never really appealed to a lot of other people, either. 

But if it’s not real, then why can he hear the music? Why can he feel the press of the headphones against his head so vividly? He’s never hallucinated anything before, and he’s not sure if they’re supposed to be so tactile. 

A light breeze ruffles her short, sandy hair around her face. She shuts her eyes, tilts back a bit, and takes a deep breath which causes her chest to rise and then fall slowly. 

The chorus of the song picks up in a swell and he can’t take his eyes off of her. She finally turns to look at him, lips quirking back into that horribly sad smile. Holding onto her iPod like the loop of a leash, she begins to walk, making no attempt to recover her headphones from him. He follows blindly, sweeping the area for any recognition from surrounding people that he’s being lead around by a paint-covered dream. Nobody glances at either of them. 

The infamous Getty garden looks a bit like a maze, and she pulls him into it. He tries to focus on the lyrics of this song, wondering what the hell his subconscious wants to tell him. He tries to think of where he must have heard it, because there’s no way he’s just made up this beautiful music, but he can’t put his finger on it. It’s not Skye’s style, nor is it Trip’s. It’s similar to the style that Hunter plays, but Hunter’s never been a particularly gifted lyricist. 

Ships are launching from my chest,  
Some have names but most do not;  
If you find one please,  
Let me know what piece I’ve lost.

Peel the scars from off my back,  
I don’t need them anymore;  
You can throw them out,  
Or keep them in your mason jars,  
I’ve come home. 

Her lips move to the words and he suddenly feels remarkably overwhelmed. She’s a figment of his imagination. That’s how she knows exactly what part the song is on even though she can’t hear it. The fairy lights that light up the maze-like hedges are reflecting off of her so beautifully because he’s made her up. 

He’s made her up inside of his head and that is the only reasonable explanation. He screws his eyes shut as she stops in front of the fountain in the very center of the hedges. He feels small, cold hands remove the headphones but doesn’t open his eyes. 

When he finally does, he is alone. There is no sign of her. 

*** 

“I’m serious, Fitz, she’s really cool,” Skye insists as he chews on his pizza four days later. 

“I don’t doubt that she is,” he shrugs as he swallows a bite. “I’m just not ready.” 

“Trip, tell him how perfect Jemma is.” 

Trip raises his eyebrows as his tiny girlfriend practically inhales half a slice in one bite, shaking his head as he turns toward his roommate. “She really is great. She’s from England, she’s an artist, she’s smart and funny—“ 

“Sounds like she’d want nothing to do with a guy like me,” Fitz snorts. “I’m trying. I’m getting better. I don’t wanna date until I can write again, alright?” 

Skye huffs but grudgingly accepts his statement. “As soon as you finish a poem, I’m dragging you out to meet her. Deal?” 

He grins at her. He knows it’ll be a long while yet before he gets his inspiration back. “Fine, Skye. Deal.” 

“What are you up to tonight?” Trip asks him. He shoots him a look. 

“What am I ever up to, Trip?” 

“Come out with us,” Trip laughs. “We’re meeting up with Mack to go watch Hunter play. I think Hunter’s new girl will be there too.” 

“Blonde bartender?” 

“The one and only,” Skye answers. “She’s actually pretty amazing. Can’t see what she sees in Hunter.” 

“He works fast,” Fitz observes. “If I’m gonna keep up with this whole ‘getting out of the house’ thing, I guess I’ll come with you.” 

“What an enthusiastic response to my invitation,” Trip gripes sarcastically. “I’m so unappreciated around here.” 

Fitz feels his chest grow a little bit lighter as he sits on his living room floor eating pizza with two of his favorite people. Skye had been right; the last few days of getting out of the house have drastically increased his mood. After the museum, he’d spent a morning in a bookstore. He purchased a couple of novels and then posted up in a coffee shop for most of the day reading. By the time evening had come around, he’d realized that he’d forgotten to remember the fact that his girlfriend had run off with his former roommate and friend. Part of him had expected to see his imaginary woman at the café (and an embarrassingly large part of him had been embarrassed when she didn’t appear). The next day he’d gone to the beach the next day, reading some more and having some fairly decent fish and chips at a nearby seafood shack. 

He’d slept in today, and then went to the movies in the afternoon to see an explosion-filled action flick instead of his usual highbrow art films that Trip and Skye complained about. It had been remarkably fulfilling in a very different way. He could have sworn that he saw a brown haired woman wearing red Doc Martens leaving the theater in front of him, but he wasn’t about to chase what was most likely a figment of his imagination through a parking structure. If she was a real woman, she’d have attacked him, probably, and would have had every right. 

He, Trip, and Skye knock back a few beers, chattering and joking around until Trip announces that they should head to the bar where Hunter is performing if they wanna get a good spot. It’s not one of their usual places, and it takes Fitz a moment to adjust to the purple and pink lighting of the bar. Skye stakes out a booth, waving enthusiastically toward Hunter’s blonde, and Trip and Fitz head to the bar to get the drinks. 

“I’m glad to see you doing better, man,” Trip tells him honestly as the bartender pours a pitcher and makes a whiskey sour for Skye. “I knew you could do it.” 

“Yeah, well, I needed a push in the right direction from some pretty good people.” 

Trip grins at him, pays the bartender, and leads them back to where Skye talks excitedly with the other woman. 

“I’m Bobbi,” she introduces, shaking Fitz’s hand. “Nice to meet you.” 

He quickly learns that Skye was right. She is pretty amazing, and it truly makes almost no sense that she’s with Hunter, of all people, but when he takes the stage her eyes light up and Fitz can immediately tell that she’s crazy about him. 

Skye notices the same thing and snorts lightly. “Love is so weird.” 

He swallows and nods, trying not to think about how his mind automatically jumped to his Imaginary Girl. Fitz is a lot of things, but he’s not the type of person to fall in love with a figment of his own imagination, he really isn’t. Except for that fact that he kind of is, he thinks. He shakes himself out of it and turns his attention to the small stage where Hunter is setting up with his guitar in front of his guitar. His bandmates set up behind him and then he clears his throat into the mic. 

“Hey everyone, we’re Hunter and the Arrows and this is ‘Flaws’,” he says into the microphone, glancing up to meet Bobbi’s eyes and giving her a little wink. 

Skye can’t help but tease her for the flush that comes over her cheeks as he begins to play. Some dark-haired girl and her friends begin to dance right in front of him, gazing flirtatiously toward the stage. 

Bobbi rolls her eyes. “So desperate.” 

“I like this one,” Skye crows, tilting her drink toward her newest friend. “Y’know, I think you’d really like my friend from work. Her name’s Jemma, she’s fabulous. And it seems like you’re into British people. You can add her to your collection!” 

“Jemma Simmons?” Bobbi asks, eyes wide. Skye nods enthusiastically and she continues. “No way! We went to college together up in San Francisco, we lost touch a couple of years back.” 

“I told you, Trip, this girl was meant to be in our group,” Skye breathes, starry-eyed. Trip laughs fondly at his girlfriend, pecking her on the nose. 

“I’m sure she is, babe.” 

A couple of the girls from the front of the stage stop by their table at one point to tell Bobbi how lucky she is, and one of them even makes an ill-fated attempt at flirting with Trip. The last one, a tan brunette, leans against the table and cocks an eyebrow at her friends. 

“Groupies, am I right?” she asks wryly. Fitz laughs lightly. 

“Hunter has that affect on women. Not sure why, though.” 

Her eyes widen. “Wow, are you from Ireland?” 

He can’t help the glower that takes over his face. “Everyone always bloody thinks that. Can’t tell the damn difference in this country. I’m from Glasgow.” 

“Which is…?” 

“In Scotland!” he exclaims grumpily. This just makes her laugh, and she smacks him lightly on the shoulder. Skye has told him time and time again that this type of hitting is actually supposed to be flirtatious, but he’s never understood that. Even when it was his own girlfriend doing it to his roommate. 

“I didn’t major in geography,” she teases. “Buy me a drink?” 

He rather thinks she should still know where Glasgow is, even without a geography major (and do people really major in that anyway? Just memorizing where things are?). Skye gives him a pointed look that indicates that if he doesn’t comply with this woman, he’ll have hell to pay later. He musters up a smile and walks with her toward the bar. 

“I’m Kara,” she introduces with a nervous giggle when they get there. “Can’t believe I forgot to tell you that.” 

“Fitz,” he tells her, gesturing awkwardly at himself. “What’re you drinking?” 

She orders a vodka 7-up from the bartender and he decides to get a whiskey while he’s up anyway. The pitcher of beer was watery at best, and he suddenly felt like he may need a little more courage than he ordinarily would at one of Hunter’s gigs. 

“So what do you do, Fitz?” she shouts at him over the music as they make their way back to the table. 

“I’m a writer. How bout you?” 

“A writer, wow! What kind?” 

“Poetry, mostly,” Fitz shrugs. “I’ve been toying with the idea of a novella.” 

“I’ll have to look you up,” she smiles. “I’m a criminal defense lawyer.” 

“Wow, that must be…interesting.” 

“I just don’t think that anyone’s life should be ruined over a mistake, y’know?” 

He considers this and then nods. 

“That’s very admirable of you,” he tells her as he slides back into the booth. 

“Did I hear you say you’re a lawyer?” Bobbi asks loudly. Kara nods and Bobbi smiles. 

“No way, me too!” 

“You’re a bartender,” Skye reminds her with a puzzled look on her face. Bobbi laughs. 

“’I’ve been helping out my friend Izzy, her last bartender walked out on the job and she needed help. I’m a prosecutor by day, bartender by night—at least until Izzy gets someone new.” 

Kara squints her eyes at Bobbi for a moment. “Did you work the Ward case?” 

Trip, Fitz, and Skye all freeze. Fitz feels his heart speed up, and based on the look in Skye’s eyes, he’s not the only one. 

Bobbi laughs humorlessly and takes a long swig of her drink. “Yep. And I am very, very glad to say that that bastard will be sentenced this week.” 

Kara’s eyes shift from curiosity to animosity very quickly. “You obviously weren’t paying attention during trial, then.” 

Bobbi’s jaw drops. “You were co-counsel. I thought I recognized you from somewhere. We all have our issues, Kara—“ 

“Ms. Palamas.” 

Bobbi rolls her eyes and continues on. “Whatever. We all have our issues. I understand that Ward didn’t have a great childhood, but that didn’t give him the right to—“ 

“To what?” Skye asks, her voice strained. 

Bobbi suddenly looks concerned. “Wait, do you know him?” 

Kara’s head snaps toward the other woman and Fitz feels the overwhelming need to get out of the booth. Hunter’s band plays on, oblivious to the mounting tension between his friends and this random woman. 

“I did,” Skye replies tersely. “What was he on trial for?” 

“A bunch of things,” Bobbi tells her slowly, cautious with her phrasing. “Illegal weapons, assault and battery—he was apparently deluded by John Garrett—“ 

“His godfather,” Skye whispers. She stands quickly. “I’m gonna throw up.” 

“You’re Skye,” Kara gasps. Skye shakes her head, hand going to her mouth, and Trip immediately steps in front of her, protecting her from Kara’s gaze. 

“Y’know, I think we should head home,” Trip tells Kara. “It was nice to meet you, Ms. Palamas.” 

“No, no, I—I wanna be by myself, okay? Just for a bit,” Skye tells him. Trip turns to face her, scanning her face for anything he should be immediately concerned with. “I just—I just need to be alone. I promise, I’ll be okay.” 

Trip kisses her lightly, nuzzling his nose against hers. “Okay. You call me when you’re ready, okay? And no matter what I’m coming to your place tonight.” 

She smiles gently, nodding slowly. “I know. That’s why you’re the best.” 

Fitz watches her leave, his hands clenched in fists on the table as Kara and Bobbi continue to bicker with one another over the case. He doesn’t blame Skye; he suddenly feels quite nauseous himself. He turns to watch her leave through the front door and watches her collide with his familiar Imaginary Girl. He expects her to move on as though nothing had happened, but instead, she stops and begins talking rapidly to the other woman. Her familiar brown eyes fill with sympathy and she reaches forward to wrap Skye in her arms. When she pulls away, her lips move to speak with her and she looks very serious before offering Skye her hand. The two women leave together, and Fitz feels entirely untethered. 

It has to be the stress of this insane conversation with Ward’s defense attorney. That’s the only way this makes any sense at all. She’s just a construction of his extremely distraught emotional state. 

Everything feels a little bit hazy after that. Bobbi and Kara have a fierce argument that he barely follows, and then Kara storms out of the bar. Bobbi slams down three shots once she’s gone, and Trip repeatedly checks his phone until Skye finally texts him back. He sighs, relieved. 

“She ran into Jemma and they went back to Skye’s,” Trip tells him. Fitz nods in acknowledgement. 

“I think I’m gonna head home.” 

Trip claps his shoulder in understanding. “Tonight was some drama, huh?” 

Bobbi snorts. “Is it always like this?” 

“Not usually,” Trip laughs. “Get home safe, man. I’ll probably be crashing at Skye’s tonight.” 

He says goodnight and leaves before Hunter’s set is even finished. He shoves his hands in his pockets and walks the short few blocks back to his apartment, passing Skye’s building on the way. He unconsciously glances toward what he knows is her living room window, and sees Skye pacing and gesturing wildly to a woman sitting on the couch with her back to the window. Something about her hair looks familiar, but he shakes himself out of it. He just needs to go to sleep. 

When he gets home, he can’t sleep. All he can do is think about Ward and the Imaginary Girl taking up half of his thoughts. He’d watched Skye bump into her. He’d watched her speak to her, and he could have sworn that the woman in Skye’s apartment was her. But Trip had said she’d run into Jemma, Skye’s friend from work. 

There had to be some explanation. It was simply impossible that not only was Imaginary Girl not actually imaginary at all, but that she was also one of Skye’s close friends, who she coincidentally had begun trying to set him up with. 

His mind drifts back to seeing her for the first time at the bar with Hunter, and then to the Getty museum. He thinks about the way she’d looked, so lonely in that giant gallery, eyes tinted with something distinctly melancholic. And then he thought of how she’d smiled at him in the evening and it did something strange to his pulse. 

Giving up on sleep, he rolls out of bed and tentatively opens up his laptop on his desk. Taking a deep breath, he rests his fingers lightly on the keys, watching the cursor blink on the blank word document. 

And then, he writes. 

*** 

When Trip and Skye enter the apartment late the next morning, the last thing they expect is to see a cheery Fitz flipping pancakes and blasting some folky song. 

“I’ve come hooooome,” he sings, slightly off-key. Skye drops her bag to the floor heavily, laughing at his startled expression. 

“What is going on here?” Trip asks. “Did you end up getting laid last night or something?” 

Fitz shakes his head emphatically. “No. Even better.” 

Skye’s eyebrows shoot up, and he takes a moment to flip a pancake. 

“I wrote last night. All night long, and I finished three poems. Three bloody poems, you guys.” 

Skye beams, bouncing on her toes and then darting into the kitchen to hug him. “Fitz, I’m so happy for you! And now I can finally introduce you to Jemma.” 

Trip busies himself with making some coffee for he and Skye since Fitz insists on only drinking tea. “What got into you last night?” 

“I think it really started that night I went out with Hunter,” he explains vaguely. “It’s all just been building up till now, I guess.” 

“See, Fitz, that bitch Raina wasn’t your muse after all.” 

Fitz smiles and plates the last pancake, turning off the burner. “I’m feeling pretty good, finally. How are you? You seemed pretty upset last night.” 

Skye bites her lip, stirring some sugar into her steaming mug. “I was just really taken aback. I knew Ward was an asshole, but I never thought he’d be capable of like, violence, you know? Bobbi said he’s probably going to go to jail. That’s just a little crazy to me. I needed some time to think about it.” 

Fitz sits heavily in one of the chairs surrounding their small wooden table. “Y’know, I refused to believe that he was a bad guy for so long. But he was, and now that I know that, I don’t think there’s anything he’s not capable of. I’m not as surprised as I should be, I guess.” 

“That Kara girl was a piece of work,” Trip observes, topping his pancakes with fresh berries and foregoing the syrup. Skye wrinkles her nose at him and he sticks his tongue out while Fitz chuckles at their battle of foods, per usual. 

“For a second there I thought Fitz was gonna go home with the nutty lawyer lady,” Skye teases. “Gotta say, I’m glad you didn’t.” 

“There’s a very, very small chance that I may have been considering it,” he grimaces. Skye kicks him under the table and then changes the subject to work. Her job at The Shield Academy as a preschool teacher fit her surprisingly well. The flirty, outrageous brunette he’d met when she’d started dating Grant had always had compassion, a good sense of humor, and a fairly large chip on her shoulder from growing up in foster care. All of those qualities had made her very good with children, and within a year, she’d been moved from assistant teacher to having her own classroom. 

“So I could not figure out what to do with this kid, because he’s freaking out and crying and then Jemma just walks up, sits in front of him, and very calmly explains to him that his father went to work and that he would be back at exactly 3:00 in the afternoon. By the time he left, he’d learned how to tell freaking time because Jemma had him check the time every hour. It was amazing.” 

Fitz makes a vague noise of interest. “I know you wanna set me up with her, Skye. I still feel a bit weird about it, if I’m honest.” 

“No!” Skye gasps, slapping a hand on the table. “We had a deal. I already told her about you, she’ll be so disappointed if you don’t at least meet her. It doesn’t have to be a date, even. We’ll all hang out together. I just really feel like you two would get along, even if nothing romantic happens.” 

“Why don’t we have a game night here or something?” Trip suggests. His girlfriend beams. 

“I knew there was a reason I keep you around.” 

Skye pulls out her phone and types a quick text before smirking at Fitz. “Great, she’s coming over at 8 tonight. But none of your weird games. I’m talking classics here.” 

“What’s your idea of classics?” Fitz asks wearily. 

“Y’know, Trouble, Sorry!, some lowkey naked Twister—“ 

“The fact that you think it’s a good idea for her to see me naked goes to show that you secretly want this plan to fail.” 

Skye huffs. “Not that you’re my type, but I’m sure you look just fine naked.” 

Fitz splutters and looks to his roommate for some backup but finds him completely unconcerned with his girlfriend talking about Fitz’s naked body. 

“I’ve got the body of a twelve year old boy, Skye.” 

“Oh shut up,” Skye scoffs, rolling her eyes. “Maybe when I met you two years ago, but not anymore.” 

Fitz just rolls his eyes and stands to put his dish in the sink. “I’m gonna get some sleep, I was up all night. I’ll see you guys later, yeah?” 

Trip and Skye bid him goodnight and he crawls between his sheets with a contented sigh. He doesn’t bother to set an alarm and lets his body melt into the mattress. 

He remains blissfully asleep for eight hours, until he’s woken by Skye. “God, you sleep like the dead. Jemma’s gonna be here in an hour.” 

He groans, batting her hands away from his shoulders. “Thirty more minutes.” 

“You’ve been asleep all day!” she protests. “Up you get, Fitzy.” 

She yanks the blankets off of him and he lets out a little whine of dissatisfaction. “You’re the worst.” 

Skye just smiles at him sarcastically. “One man’s opinion. Seriously, Fitz, get up. You need a shower, you smell like beer and whiskey and pancakes.” 

“Some women might find that very attractive.” 

“No women would find that attractive,” she corrects. He pulls himself off the bed and makes his way into the bathroom, Skye rambling behind him the entire time until he closes the door. He takes his time in the shower, letting the hot water rinse away the remaining cobwebs of sleep that feel tangled around his mind and limbs. 

When he gets out, Skye tosses a dark blue button-down and some light grey jeans at him. 

“Wear this,” she orders. “Just trust me on this one.” 

“You are entirely too enthusiastic about something that’s not even a date, Skye.” 

Trip mumbles his agreement from the living room, but stops immediately when Skye narrows her eyes at him. Skye hustles around the apartment, tidying up and trying to arrange the snacks she’d bought at the grocery store into appealing shapes on platters. Trip stops her and kisses her head. 

“I don’t even think you were this nervous meeting my parents,” he laughs. She loses some of the tension in her body, leaning into him. 

“I just want all of my friends to be happy.” 

“I know you do.” 

Fitz tries a little bit harder after that. He appreciates everything that Skye has tried to do for him since the Raina and Ward saga, especially since she’d been betrayed in the whole thing as well. Her whirlwind romance with Trip had been entirely unexpected for all parties involved, including Fitz, but he was happy that they’d found each other in the terrible time after Ward had screwed her over. 

A knock on the door startles him out of his musings and he calls to Skye that he’ll answer it. He figures it’ll be easier to introduce himself without Skye’s inevitable heavy breathing and wide eyes making things weird. 

He swings the door open and his heart stops. Standing in front of him, holding a bottle of wine in paint-stained hands, is his Imaginary Girl. Her pink lips open ever so slightly as she sucks in a shocked breath. They stare at one another for a long moment, broken out of their mutual surprise by Skye’s rapid footsteps. 

“Jemma!” she cheers, throwing her arms around her friend. “I’m so glad you’re here!” 

Jemma smiles shakily at Skye. “Of course. I brought this.” 

She hands her the wine and lets Skye pull her into the apartment. Fitz feels a shiver go down his spine. There’s no way he’s imagining it this time; Jemma is one-hundred percent real, and she’s here, in his space. She’s the woman that Skye swears is perfect for him. While Skye busies herself with opening the wine, Jemma says hi to Trip and makes some small talk. 

“So you met Fitz at the door then?” Trip asks, nodding toward his roommate. “We’ve lived together for a little over a month now, but we’ve been friends for a while.” 

Jemma glances at Fitz with a small smile. “We actually met before. Kind of.” 

Skye looks at Fitz with a look of utter betrayal on her face. “Are you kidding me?!” 

“I didn’t know!” he says, raising his hands in defense. “Swear it. We never actually—“ 

“—spoke to one another. You know how I can be,” she tells Skye with a significant glance. Skye nods as she grabs four wine glasses out of the cabinet. 

Fitz wonders exactly how Jemma can be. His head is spinning and he knows he needs to pull it together soon if he’s going to have any semblance of a normal evening (and if he wants to avoid the inevitable wrath of Skye if he’s behaving anything short of her expectations). 

“What a small world,” Skye brightens. She hands everyone a glass of wine and settles down into the corner of the couch with Trip. “I pulled a few games out of the closet, what does everyone want to play?” 

“Ooh, you’ve got Jenga!” Jemma exclaims just as Fitz grabs the box. 

“Jenga sounds good,” he says, almost drowned out by Jemma’s voice. They turn to stare at each other again. Her lips quirk up slightly on the ends and returns her close lipped smile. He can practically feel Skye vibrating with excitement on the couch. 

Fitz and Trip set up the game, struggling slightly with the pieces while the girls chat idly and tease them for their incompetence. 

“Why’s there writing on these?” Jemma asks, cocking her head to the side as she picks one of the wooden blocks up. 

“Oh, when we first got this, we made it a drinking game-slash-truth or dare kind of thing,” Fitz explains. “We obviously won’t play it that way, but—“ 

“Speak for yourself!” Skye interrupts. “We obviously will be playing it that way.” 

Jemma takes a small sip of her red wine and wrinkles her nose at her friend. Fitz is pretty sure it’s the cutest thing he’s ever seen. “Alright, I’m in.” 

Trip grins. “So there’s a question written on each block. If you don’t want to answer the question, then you can drink instead. And whoever knocks over the tower has to take a shot.” 

Jemma and Skye hum their understand of the rules, and then Skye claps excitedly, offering to go first. She gently slides one of the blocks out of the tower and reads it out loud. 

“What’s your most embarrassing moment?” she contemplates. “Hm. There was one time when I was in high school, right after I’d moved in with Phil and Melinda, and I had snuck out to go see my older boyfriend, Miles. So I’m searching for my shirt and I open the door to his room and she’s standing in his living room, holding up my shirt and telling me to get dressed. I seriously wanted to die.” 

Fitz has only met Skye’s adoptive parents a couple of times, but he can only imagine her terrifying, stoic mom in that moment. Jemma throws her head back with a laugh and he fleetingly thinks it might be his new favorite song. 

“I think my mother would have had a heart attack,” Jemma tells her. Fitz soaks up this information, cataloging all the little things he’s learning about her. All the little things that make her real, that prove that she is. 

She deftly plucks out a block and turns it over to find the writing. “What is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?” 

She chews on her lip for a moment before her eyes light up. 

“Oh! I’ve got it. When I first moved to the city, my father sent me this ridiculous taser, and I carried it in my purse with me. I was working for an attorney, as his assistant, and he had me stay late one evening working on filing. I heard the door open and I panicked. I had no idea who it was, so—anyway, I tased my boss.” 

“Jemma Simmons!” Skye shrieks with a laugh. Trip chuckles and Fitz finds himself laughing, too. Her cheeks flush light pink and a wide grin spreads across her face. 

“Sounds like he had it coming,” he jokes. “Making you stay late to sort through files.” 

She giggles. “Poor Mr. Sitwell.” 

Fitz waits until he’s stopped laughing to make his attempt at the stack of tiles. The tower wobbles precariously and he lets out a breath of relief when it doesn’t fall. “Tell us about your worst sexual experience,” he reads slowly. Skye catcalls him, Trip lets out a little whoop, and Jemma just raises her eyebrows to him in a silent challenge. 

Sighing deeply, he screws his eyes shut. “This one time I was hooking up with a girl I’d met at a bar and I was pretty drunk, so I tried to pick her up against the wall, thinking it’d be, y’know, hot or whatever—“ 

He can hear Skye trying very, very hard not to laugh at him. Trip isn’t trying at all. 

“But I guess I didn’t give her enough warning what I was going to do, and then she started flailing around and I dropped her and she broke her tailbone.” 

Everyone bursts out into laughter, and even though he’s just completely embarrassed himself, Jemma’s giggle floats through the room and he can’t help but smile at her. Trip is up next, and his question is a freebie. 

“Who would you make out with that’s here?” he laughs. “That’s an easy one.” 

He launches himself at his girlfriend, kissing her hard and Jemma and Fitz both awkwardly look away. Fitz lets it go on for a moment, but when Skye starts to make little breathy noises, he hits them with his jenga tile. 

“Oi! Come on, now.” 

They break apart, flushed and breathless but with matching smiles on their faces. The game continues, and Fitz learns that Jemma once stole a box of condoms because she was too embarrassed to buy them, she tried to run a marathon but accidentally overslept and missed it, she worked at a Hot Dog on a Stick in college and some mean sorority girls would go there every day to make fun of her ridiculous uniform, and she grew up with a menagerie of pets. 

In the end, it’s Skye that topples the tower, and she moans and groans when Trip pours her a double shot of vodka. 

“I’m still hungover from last night,” she gripes. She receives no sympathy from the others, and she downs it with an exaggerated grimace. 

When they’ve finished the bottle of wine that Jemma brought, Skye makes a flimsy excuse to run to the store and drags Trip out the door with her at the last moment, leaving Fitz and Jemma alone in his living room. 

“I’m sorry,” Jemma blurts when the door shuts. He stares at her, puzzled by her apology. 

“What?” 

“I’m—well, I can be a little weird,” she winces, crinkling her nose again. “I’m really good at reading people, but not always the best at—communicating with them. I’m good with kids, but that’s about it. So when I saw you at the museum I just had this weird feeling that you would really like that song, and I didn’t know what to say to you to explain that so I just put the headphones on you like a crazy person, and—“ 

Fitz cuts her off with a laugh. “Jemma, please, stop. I literally thought that I’d made you up inside my head.” 

Her face freezes, jaw dropping comically. “Are you serious?” 

“Yes! That’s why I never mentioned you to Skye. I’d thought I’d completely lost it.” 

She beams. “So we’re both a little weird, hm?” 

“Extremely so,” he agrees. “I just can’t believe that you’re the woman Skye keeps trying to introduce me to.” 

“Why’d you say no?” she asks after a moment, eyes vulnerable and a little shy. He takes a seat on the couch near her. 

“Did Skye tell you about her ex, Grant?”

Jemma nods, and he continues. 

“The woman he ran off with was my girlfriend, Raina. I was so thrown by the whole thing that I totally lost myself. I felt really damaged, and I couldn’t even write, and I just didn’t feel ready to meet anyone. So I told her that I would meet you when I was writing again. Last night I wrote three poems, so Skye invited you over.” 

She studies him carefully. “So what got you writing again?” 

He takes in a shaky breath. “Honestly? You.” 

She swallows, twisting her hands in her lap. “Well, I’m glad I could help.” 

“I know this is crazy,” Fitz tells her. “Absolutely insane, because up until a few hours ago I thought you were a hallucination, and I just talked about what a mess I am, but I’d really like to take you out sometime. Without Skye staring at us like she’s about to mash our faces together and make us kiss.” 

Jemma giggles at that and looks up at him with a smirk on her face before growing serious again. “I just don’t get it. Why me?” 

“There’s something in your eyes. I can’t explain it or place it. I wrote those poems about what I imagined you’d be like, if you were real.” 

“And how do I measure up?” she challenges, lifting one eyebrow. 

“You’re so much better,” he breathes. 

She shakes her head, short brown hair flying wildly around her face. “Look, I appreciate the sentiment, Fitz, but this always happen. My quirks are cute right now, but eventually you’ll get sick of me forgetting to eat, or you’ll get tired of the fact that I’m always covered in paint, or you won’t like my art and I’ll be devastated and I’m just—I’m not some enigma. I’m a person, a very real person with a hell of a lot of flaws.” 

Fitz swallows hard and impulsively reaches for her hand. “I haven’t even taken you to a movie yet and you’ve already planned our breakup.” 

She laughs humorlessly. “I don’t have to plan it. It always happens the same way. You’ll think I’m all interesting but then you’ll realize I’m just a mess and it’s not all that interesting up close, so you’ll leave and I’ll start all over with the next guy who thinks I’m his muse or his sign from some higher power or whatever bullshit he’s created in his mind about me.” 

“Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you don’t have to be that, for anyone?” 

Jemma’s eyes go wide and she stares at him, tongue darting out to wet her lips. “What do you mean?” 

“Don’t let me,” he shrugs, leaning back and removing his hand from her leg. “Tell me not to write about you. Don’t let me look at your paintings. Put your foot down and don’t let anyone turn you into an image of anything other than who you are.” 

“I’m not very good at that. I’m an open book,” she whispers. 

He snorts. “You’ve got walls a foot thick. I’ve only just met you and I can tell you that with absolute certainty. But you also seem really kind, and hard-working, and passionate, and funny, but you’re also jaded and you obviously think way too much and you’re also kind of a know-it-all, and I want to know more about you. If you’ll let me.” 

“You got all of that from a game of truth or dare jenga?” she teases. He grins, pleased to see her mood shifting. 

“I’m pretty good at reading people, too.” 

She leans closer to him. “You really are, aren’t you?” 

He nods, a bit overwhelmed with her sudden proximity. Her eyes glance down at his lips, lightly stained from the red wine. 

“I don’t usually do this,” she warns him. Before he gets a chance to ask what she means, she presses her lips to his, soft at first but with increasing urgency. His hands shoot out to grab at her waist, tugging her closer to him on the couch. Her hands settle on the back of his neck, and he can feel the scratchy texture of dried paint against his skin; it sends a shiver down his spine as slips his tongue past her teeth. 

She swings one leg over his lap as his lips move to her neck, causing her to release a breathy moan that has him tightening his grip on her. She rocks against him and he hisses against her shoulder before bringing her mouth back to his in a clumsy kiss. 

They carry on this way until the door swings open and she flies off of his lap, landing in an awkward heap on the floor. Skye raises her eyebrows so high that Fitz thinks they might fly off of his face. He can only imagine the picture he makes, curls in disarray and lips swollen from their heated kisses. 

He expects Skye to make fun of them, but instead, she just places the wine on the table. 

“We grabbed a movie from the Red Box,” she informs them. “Well, we got a couple, in case you artsy types weren’t up for Jurassic World.” 

“I love action movies,” Jemma admits a little breathlessly. She glances over at Fitz with a small smile. “Artsy movies drive me crazy. I think they’re pretentious and everyone pretends like they understand it, but nobody has any idea what’s going on.” 

He breaks out in a grin. “I prefer poorly made horror movies over action, and I’m one of those people who pretends to know what’s going on.” 

“Good to know,” she hums, lifting herself off the floor and wrapping her fingers around the neck of a bottle of wine. “Opener?” 

Trip directs her to the kitchen as Skye sets up the DVD. 

“So, you and Jemma hit it off,” she observes slyly. 

“You could say that,” Fitz grins. “You were right. I think we’re gonna get on.” 

Skye and Trip curl around each other in the large loveseat, leaving the entire couch for Fitz and Jemma, but she takes a seat right beside him anyway. He smiles at her as she hands him a glass of wine and she leans into his side, putting one hand on his thigh. It only takes another five minutes for him to gather the courage to put his arm on the back of the couch behind her, and she leans fully into him. 

He watches her face throughout the movie, absorbing the expressiveness of it as she gasps and shrieks and shouts at the people on the TV to “leave this godsforsaken island, I mean, honestly!” 

She might think he won’t like the real her, but he’s pretty sure he’s going to quite like proving her wrong. 

When she bids him goodnight, she puts her number in his phone and kisses him on the cheek. He texts her before she even gets home, and they stay up late, exchanging texts about their likes and dislikes and memories. 

*** 

She tells him that she’s never been to Disneyland, so that’s where he takes her on their first date. It’s crowded, given the approaching holiday season, and he gets impatient in the lines and she makes fun of him for it. He laughs at her when she gets scared on the Matterhorn and they share a bucket of too-salty popcorn. They bicker over how to plan out their day, and she scolds him when he eats too much junk food and then throws it in his face later in the day when he’s complaining about a stomachache. 

(But she still sits with him on a bench and buys him a Sprite to help him feel better). 

They ride everything, even the carousel, and he can barely breathe from laughing so hard when the ride operator opens the gate and she joins the flood of children running toward the prettiest horses. She hops onto a blue one with a satisfied grin. 

“This is the one I wanted,” she brags. A small child glares at her from a few horses ahead. Obviously, that child wanted it too. 

“I think that kid wanted your horse.” 

“Yes, well, it’s my first time,” she huffs, pointing at the button she’d gotten at the front of the park. “He’s not wearing one of these.” 

“Ah, I see,” he laughs. “Smile with your horse then, Loony Tunes.” 

She doesn’t even sass him, just poses for his photo and bounces excitedly when the ride starts up. She takes a great deal of pleasure in the fact that Fitz picked one of the horses that doesn’t move. 

All in all, it’s the best date he’s ever been on. She sets him straight when he gets whiney, and he reins in her manic enthusiasm. They hold hands and sneak kisses on dark rides, and when they finally get back to his car and it’s past midnight, they decide to find a diner and grab some food. 

He watches her in the yellow lighting of some cheesy “retro” diner they find off of the freeway. She looks exhausted but happy, so different then when he’d first spotted her in the bar and then in the museum. He finally places the look in her eyes. 

She’d been lonely. He hates the thought of it. 

He doesn’t pull up to her building until nearly two in the morning, and she doesn’t invite him inside. Instead she tugs him in to a sweet, long kiss, her hands planted on his cheeks. 

“Thank you, Fitz,” she sighs as they separate. “This was so lovely.” 

He smiles at her, pecking her on the mouth one more time. “Of course. Goodnight, Jemma.” 

“See you soon?” she asks hopefully. 

“What’re you doing for lunch tomorrow?” he asks cheekily. She laughs and gets out of the car, walking tiredly into her building. He makes sure she gets in okay and collapses into his bed twenty minutes later, his legs and feet pulsating from their day at the theme park. 

Just as his eyes flutter shut, he’s startled back to waking by a text. 

[Jemma]: I’m free for lunch tomorrow. Just saying.

He smiles into the bright screen of his phone and sends her a quick response before he completely passes out. 

*** 

She doesn’t show him her work until they’ve been dating for nearly two months. She spends most nights at his apartment and most days at her own loft, working. This is part of the deal; he doesn’t show her his poems and she doesn’t show him her paintings. This way, they don’t get wrapped up in each other’s art and can just appreciate one another as human beings instead of ideas.

He likes it, he really does, but he also knows that his poems are such a big part of his humanity, and he’s sure that her paintings at the same. He aches to share it with her. When she invites him to a gallery showing that will be featuring her work, he jumps at the chance. She invites Hunter, Bobbi, Skye, and Trip as well, so he arrives with them, since she’s been mingling for the pre-party. 

She looks gorgeous, and more put-together than he’s ever seen her. There’s no paint on her hands and she looks remarkably polished as she kisses him on the cheek and greets their friends. 

“I’m so glad you all made it.” 

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Skye tells her, squeezing her lightly and looking around. “This is classy as hell.” 

Jemma’s nose wrinkles. “It is, isn’t it? I rather hate this part of it.” 

“Free fancy food and free alcohol, what’s not to love?” Hunter jokes, slipping arm around Bobbi. She bats at him playfully. 

“Where’s your stuff?” Bobbi asks. Jemma smiles nervously, wrapping her hand around Fitz’s and leads them to a wall that is entirely hers. 

“Here it is.” 

Her friends all still, eyes roaming the wall. Fitz’s eyes settle on the painting directly in front of him. The canvas is a deep blue, mixed with black. Gold streaks across it and dots it in tiny, ornate little spots that look like stars. Part of it melds into a lighter blue, and for the first time, Fitz finds that he loves abstract painting. 

“This is amazing,” he breathes. Jemma glances up at him hopefully. 

“Really? You hate abstract work.” 

“Is that why you’ve never showed me your stuff? Because I said that?” he gapes. She smiles and shakes her head. 

“Well, that’s part of the reason. I just wanted to have something I really loved to show you.” 

He kisses her quickly and turns his attention back to it. “You’re amazing. You’re so talented.” 

Her hand squeezes his and he squeezes back before releasing her to receive praise from their friends. She explains one of them to Hunter and Skye, and then she’s swept up by some art dealer that wants to talk with her about buying one of her paintings. She gives Fitz a little wink over her shoulder as she’s dragged off, and he’s left staring after with a goofy, dazed expression on his face. 

“You love her,” Skye observes plainly, standing beside him. They don’t look at each other; they just stare at Jemma’s painting. 

“Yeah,” he replies easily. 

“You haven’t told her that.” 

“Nope,” he admits. “But I’m going to. Soon.” 

“She loves you, too,” Skye assures him. “And I’m so happy for you both. You bring out something amazing in each other.” 

“What d’you mean?” 

“You’re broody and grumpy. But ever since you’ve met Jemma, it’s been a healthy amount of brooding and grumping around. And she can be really withdrawn and skittish but she’s become so much more open since you two started seeing each other. It’s just—it’s really beautiful, Fitz. Two people making each other better—that’s what relationships are supposed to be about.” 

He follows her gaze to Trip, who stands with Hunter and Bobbi in front of another one of Jemma’s works. The smile on her face is unbelievably tender and he wonders if that’s what his face looks like when he looks at Jemma. He’s pretty sure that it is. 

Later that night, when they’ve finished celebrating the fact that Jemma sold one of her paintings for nearly $15,000, they lay quietly in his bed, skin pressed together under the sheets, and then he murmurs one of his verses into her hair. She doesn’t respond for a while, and he momentarily wonders if he’s just ruined everything. Then she sits up, looking at him in the dim lighting from the street lamps outside. 

“That was the last piece.” 

“The last piece of what?” 

“You,” she says simply, kissing him languidly. “I’ve been waiting, to put the last piece together.” 

“And what do you think of all these pieces?” 

“I love them,” she whispers. Her eyes suddenly gleam with vulnerability and he quickly flips them over so that his arms surround her on both sides. 

“I love all of your pieces, too,” he says softly. “And I love what they make. I love you, Jemma.” 

She reaches up to pull him down to her, kissing him heatedly and tugging his bottom lip into her teeth. He lets himself get lost in the kiss for a minute or two before he pulls back. He already knows, but he needs to hear it. 

He doesn’t need to tell her that. Like most things, she just knows. 

“I love you, too.” 

They don’t wake up until late the next afternoon, and they spend their entire day in his bed, swapping stories and touches and teasing words. 

He thinks briefly back to Raina as Jemma slips in and out of sleep beside him. He can’t remember what her voice sounded like, or what her hair looked like splayed out on his pillow. He can’t remember much of anything about her, because there’s no space for her here. 

It’s all Jemma, now, between his ribs and in the spaces between his breath. 

He’ll never tell her, but even the poems that aren’t about her are about her. She’s his reluctant, stubborn, selfless, often ridiculous muse. And he wouldn’t have her any other way.


End file.
